Team William Murray was fortunate enough to take a trip to SIAL Paris last month, which is the go-to international source of inspiration for the food industry. It’s held every two years for tastemakers, trend setters, innovators, producers, importers, buyers, retailers and more, to come together to discover what’s new to help with further securing sustainable success.
You’d be hard pressed to find anyone in the food processing industry that didn’t think the last two years have been a tough cookie to navigate. In a relatively short space of time, we’ve witnessed many transitions and transformations in the way we live, work and socialise, as well as how we view food and consume it. The pandemic generated and helped accelerate some of these changes, and the ones that were creeping onto the radar back then are now well established.
The theme for the 2022 edition of SIAL was #OwnTheChange which addressed the latest trends, customers’ expectations and initiatives that will shape tomorrow’s food industry. Let’s have a look at some of them here:
Healthier choices
We’ve learned from the SIAL Insights Report 2022 that as well taking the wider world into consideration, consumers have placed their own health at the forefront when deciding what food to eat, with 67% changing their diet to make it healthier over the past two years.
The food industry is taking note and increasing diversification when it comes to quality rather than quantity, as consumers take on a back-to-basics approach to focus further on healthy, balanced diets.
With a tap on a phone or a click of a button, information is easily available so we’re seeing greater numbers of people educating themselves on what a healthier diet means to them and deciding on where to eat based on outlets that align with their requirements.
Getting vocal about local produce
With environmental awareness also a big factor for where and what people choose to eat and nearly 1 person in 3 radically changing their behaviour when it comes to eco-responsibility, food on offer needs to tick natural, sustainable, environmentally friendly and locally produced boxes too.
People want to eat better but not at the expense of the planet and a thirst for knowledge about where the food on our plates come from, how it was processed and transported, shows no signs of waning.
People enjoy eating and want the experience to be both healthy and ethical, now and going forward. Sacrificing either one of these elements in favour of more purchasing power is set to become less acceptable, especially with ongoing challenges such as the cost of living, political crises and climate issues to mention a few.
Innovative food consumption of the future
In troubled times, food is often a source of comfort and for many it’s simply a joy to eat something delicious. Discovering new ways to bring food to people heightens the anticipation of it arriving in front of you and the experience of what the meal brings, and while ordering online is nothing new these days, things are constantly moving to keep up with the times or ideally, getting ahead.
Digital allows for creativity and fun to be sprinkled in every corner of the food industry, a generous seasoning and refinement of services and relevant information, open up new paths to products, guidance and advice, tips on eating better and much more.
Which leads us to the SIAL Future Lab which we were particularly taken with. We took a ride into what the retail food industry could look like in 2030 and it was completely different to how we shop as consumers now.
The immersive experience took us on a walk-through of aisles filled with dematerialised products but in a standard supermarket but instead of picking things off the shelves, the QR codes of products you wanted to buy were scanned and paid for on your personal device and then your basket could be retrieved from a dark store, drive-in or delivered at home. Just like that, easy as pie.
in a nutshell
Health, ethics, satisfaction and digital are the main flavours driving the global food industry towards a brighter, greener future. We’ll be watching closely how these trends heat up between now and the next SIAL event in a couple of years, but one thing is for sure – we’ve come away with plenty of nuggets to share with our clients.
